Content Warning: This article discusses domestic and family violence, and police violence.   On 28 May this year, Australia’s inaugural LGBTQ Domestic Violence Awareness Day was launched to highlight domestic, family and intimate partner violence in LGBTIQ communities. On the surface, this campaign seems to be championing a cause none of us would dispute. Its …

Billy-Ray Belcourt (he/him) is a writer and scholar from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He won the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize for his debut collection, This Wound Is a World, which was also a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. His second book of poetry, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field, was longlisted for Canada …

In 2019, I managed to get myself out of a situation that was onerous but not uncommon. It involved a man who I thought was the love of my life. I knew many individuals to exhibit the traits he displayed throughout our relationship. However, I was unaware of just how typical my experience was for …

When queer friendships can quite literally be a lifeline, it’s hard to resist the urge to attempt to reconfigure and recontextualise relationships that were once exclusively sexual or romantic.

Content warning: This article discusses sexual assault, institutionalisation and trauma.    I have found the experience of writing and performing my work about my trauma of rape and institutionalisation a healing process. Someone on Facebook, who had not spoken to me for about two years, messaged me out of the blue and said, “I’m trying …

Content warning: This article discusses sexual violence and ways of healing.   Dear Queer Survivor, I am a queer woman working in research and community work with LGBTQA people who have experienced sexual violence. I wanted to write to you to share some hope and words of wisdom from a group of queer and trans survivors …

Content warning: This article discusses rape, trauma, and ways of healing.   A year ago, I was raped by two men I went home with after a party at Sydney’s Vivid festival. Afterwards, I denied my trauma until I finally hit breaking point. Something within me felt wrong, and that feeling hasn’t changed even now. …

I stopped seeing masturbation as something I needed to get over and done with. I stopped seeing it as something I needed to overcome.

I want to tell you something about being quiet. I want to tell you about the four weeks I spent at an artist residency in rural Finland. I want to tell you about the forest and the lakes and the summer evenings when the sky went a different shade of blue but never darkened. About …

Content warning: this article discusses domestic violence in great detail I remember sitting in my psychologist’s office, my bum perched on the edge of her couch as I leant towards her, begging her to tell me why I couldn’t leave my abusive boyfriend, to explain what the hell was wrong with me. All the logic …

Last year, I marched the streets with my queer siblings, adorned in rainbow flags. I met inspirational transgender and cisgender teachers from around Victoria, who were united by a desire to educate their pupils and expand their minds. I heard the stories of Australian youth who, at such a young age, were already using their …